The fragments from the comet Swift-Tuttle will once again be lighting up the night sky, wowing star-gazers with the annual light show during the week leading up to the Santa Marija feast.
The event is known locally as Dmugh ta’ San Lawrenz or St Lawrence’s tears. Tradition has it that villagers from San Lawrenz in Gozo used to pick charcoal-like stones from the fields after a meteor shower night. The village is named after this tradition and the church is dedicated to the saint. St Lawrence’s feast falls on the same day.
How to view
There's no need for any high-powered telescopes or binoculars, the unaided eyes are best because they offer a view of the whole sky, as meteors can appear in all parts of the sky.
You’ll definitely want to find a dark, open sky to fully enjoy the show. It is also best to avoid facing the moon. Expectations this year are particularly high for the Perseids shower because the waxing crescent moon will set early, allowing even the fainter meteors to be seen.
Give yourself at least an hour of observing time, for these meteors in meteor showers come in spurts and are interspersed with lulls.
An open sky is essential because these meteors fly across the sky in many different directions and in front of numerous constellations
When Earth is passing through the densest part of the stream dozens of meteors per hour can be seen. Hundreds usually flock to L-Ahrax in Mellieha in order to get away from the light pollution and get a good view of the shooting stars.
The shooting starts usually peak mid-week between Wednesday night and Thursday morning.
Best time to view
The shower happens every year from around 17 July to 24 August, reaching its peak in the coming few days. The Perseids shower is known to rise gradually to a peak, then fall off rapidly afterwards. So as the nights pass in the week before the shower, the meteors will increase in number.
The meteors don’t really start to pick up steam until after midnight, and usually don’t assail the sky most abundantly until the early hours of the morning just before dawn. You may see 50 or so meteors per hour in a dark sky.
Every meteor is a speck of comet dust vaporising as it enters our atmosphere at 36 miles per second.